Just thought I post some of the fun stuff that I’ve been doing in North Carolina. I’m actually back home for vacation, but it’s a short vacation. I’ll post about the family road trip I took with my parents in a later post. As the title indicates, this is just highlights of random fun outings I’ve had while living in North Carolina. Start by watching the video below.
The coolest things I did was that definitely flying a small airplane. I bought one of the those “Discovery Flight” Groupons where an instructor takes you up in a small airplane for an hour, and you get to control and steer the plane in the air. Of course, the instructor did all the hard parts such as landing the planes. It was a really fun experience, and piloting a small Cessna definitely felt different than sitting in a commercial jet. A lot bumpier, but a lot of fun.The experience even included a video which you can see above this paragraph.
Speaking of planes, I attended the Wings Over Wayne Airshow at the Seymour-Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro. This is the first air show that I’ve attended, and it was a lot of fun. There were some incredible aerial acrobatic performances headlined by the Air Force Thunderbirds stunt flying team, and there were a lot of military planes on the ground for people to see up close. The best part was that admission was free. It was another bright sunny day for an airshow. The only downside was that it was hard to hide from the sun on the tarmac, and I got a little sunburn because I didn’t reapply sunscreen often enough.
Another first for me is that I visited a North Carolinian beach for the first time. I went during Memorial Day weekend to Oak Island beach, which is about 2.5 hours south of Raleigh. It’s not a well known or very commercialized beach, so even on Memorial Day weekend there was still breathing room. There were plenty of people, but parking and finding a spot on the beach weren’t an issue. The day was gorgeous, and the beach was pretty nice too. I took a dip in the ocean and it was not cold, but not warm enough to stay in there for a long time. There will be more beach outings to come over the summer.
Finally, I attended a falconry experience. It’s another Groupon deal where people can learn about the art of falconry and handle some of the birds of prey used for hunting. Out of all birds, birds of prey interest me the most, so I enjoyed the experience. We got to handle a Harris’s hawk and a barn owl, and that was pretty cool.
In addition to the above highlights, I’ve been visiting parks and also doing some brewery tours on occasion. Now that it is warm, there will probably be some longer weekend trips coming up… or at least that’s the plan.